Boiling frogs or a leap of faith as silence proves golden for Ocado

Click away on the Ocado website and you probably won’t find boiled frogs. They’re rarely even mentioned in the same breath. Probably never. Not until yesterday, anyway.

The online grocer was the top performer in the FTSE 250 for the second day running and, ostensibly, for little reason. It built on the previous day’s 36¼p rise by adding 13p to 332p. Yet no news emanated from Ocado’s headquarters in Hatfield.

There was, however, the ever abundant speculation that Ocado attracts: Marks & Spencer is eyeing it up with a view to gatecrashing last month’s deal with Wm Morrison, whispered some; maybe another licensing deal, akin to the Morrisons tie-up, ventured others.

The most likely reading was the infamous short squeeze. Before the loss-making online